Revelation
by Joanne Mariexx
Summary: "All he can do to keep from absolutely losing it is bring his shaking fingers to his eyes and try to block it out. Try to pretend that Jim's not really dead, that this is just one elaborate prank with piss-poor timing." A few of McCoy's thoughts, a tiny missing scene from STID.


**A/N: Hey, first story for this fandom. Whoo. It's three in the morning and I haven't really edited it that much - so I hope you'll review ruthlessly. (also, i kind of blatantly invented a starfleet regulation in the first paragraph, but let's just ignore that haha) Enjoy. :)  
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><p>He doesn't realize there are tears gathered on his cheeks until he has to open the body bag. As if zipping his best friend into it wasn't terrible enough, he must be the one to take him out; he's tasked, after all, with performing an unnecessary autopsy. A formal investigation of death, not because of uncertainty, but formality. A death so monumentous, so absolutely leveling as the USS Enterprise's captain's just can't go undocumented when it happens aboard this ship. Starfleet regulations, and all that.<p>

But as far as Leonard McCoy is concerned, those regulations can go to hell. Fuck 'em. And fuck Starfleet, too. Fuck the whole lot of people who sent them on this mission, who dragged them onto this suicide path. Fuck Starfleet command, fuck Marcus, Khan, all of them and the whole damn universe to boot. They put the pieces in place for Jim Kirk to die, and now McCoy - he's left to survey the damage.

It's substantial damage. In total: over eighty cadets killed the fighting, severe injury to the ship - one dead captain and probably the loss of whatever was left of McCoy's own emotional stability. It disappeared into the air, and now sits heavily, heavily on his shoulders. The weight forces him down into the nearest chair, and all he can do to keep from absolutely _losing it_ is bring his shaking fingers to his eyes and try to block it out. Try to pretend that Jim's not really dead, that this is just one elaborate prank with piss-poor timing. That he'll pop back up any second with a smirk on his face and a laugh rattling in his chest and say, "Come on, Bones - you think you can get rid of me that easy? You're stuck with me."

He wishes that were true - so much so that something in his chest physically aches.

Not that it ever stopped aching since he was called from the bridge, by Spock's shuddering, breathless request. (And he wonders, if he'd just closed his eyes and ignored it right then, would the outcome be the same? If Jim dies and he's not around to see it - is he truly dead? Think Shrödinger's captain.) The aching just varied in intensity, from the pure arrhythmic fear as he ran, to the sharp pangs of loss once he arrived at those thick glass windows just to find his best friend staring blankly ahead - absolutely and irrevocably dead.

Maybe that's when the tears started. Hell if he'd ever admit it, though; if four years ago, someone had told him he'd be softly, inconsolably sobbing over James T. Kirk, he wouldn't have believed it. He'd never imagined slapping the captain's stupid cheeks in a vain attempt to wake him, never imagined Jim's head resting limp in his lap as he begged for reality to not be so real.

Zipping Jim Kirk into a body bag and carrying him to the bridge - it just hadn't ever crossed his mind. Jim was stupid and reckless and idealistic to a fault. Of course he'd be hurt at some point - and he was, periodically - but he was always alive.

Now all those faults have disappeared. The inane little idiosyncrasies that made him Jim will soon be replaced with history-book words like _legendary_. Brilliant. Heroic. Admittedly, they all do well to describe Kirk - but they'll never fully describe Jim. The idiot is worth far more than those two-cent adjectives can say.

Unfortunately, Leonard McCoy can't write the guy's obituary. He can't write the history books or turn back time, like he desperately, desperately wishes he could.

Instead, all he can do for now is sit here. Here, with the weight of this loss pulling his heart down to the floor. He's left to ponder and second guess and torture himself with what-ifs until –

Until his head snaps up, in perfect time with the animal's sudden breath beside him. Until it dawns on him that all may not be lost, and the ache in his chest turns into a brief flutter of hope. Until a single, probably very stupid idea plants itself into his hazy, grief-stricken head and refuses to leave him alone.

And with one sudden, shuddering breath - he yells for a cryotube.

And the crew around him flies.


End file.
